DETAILS

WISE WORDS

"The best means of forming a manly, virtuous, and happy people
will be found in the right education of youth. Without this foundation,
every other means, in my opinion, must fail."

- George Washington

"Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom."

- Benjamin Franklin

WHO IS BEHIND COMMON CORE?

A nonprofit
organization called Achieve, Inc., in Washington, D.C. is the main driving force behind creating
the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI). The Common Core (CC) standards were initiated by private interests in
Washington, D.C., without any representation from the
states. See Common
Core: Myths vs. Facts here written by American Principles
Project.

From the Achieve, Inc. website: "To this day, Achieve remains the only
education reform organization led by a Board of Directors of governors
and business leaders. This unique perspective has enabled Achieve to
set a bold and visionary agenda over the past 15 years, leading Education
Week in 2006 to rank Achieve as one of the most influential education
policy organizations in the nation." Achieve is a Washington,
D.C. "think tank" which does not include membership from all of the states.

In Achieve's "Common Core Implementation Workbook" they state, "After 30 years of fits and starts, true
transformational reform in education is not only possible but also entirely
within our grasp." So Achieve has been working on "national education
standards" for 30 years! They continue on, "The implementation challenge looms large. In response, Achieve and the U.S. Education Delivery Institute have
developed a
practical Common Core Implementation Workbook for all states in the Partnership for Assessment of
Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC). The workbook uses a proven
performance management methodology known as 'delivery' to lay out clear
action steps for states and districts. It provides relevant information,
case stories of good practice, key questions and hands-on exercises for
leadership teams to complete together. Regardless of your timeline, the
workbook offers state and district leaders the means to plan for the
CCSS and then drive successful implementation. The discipline of delivery was
first developed in 2001 under U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair. "So the
system of delivery was not first developed by the states but from
from the United Kingdom's Tony Blair and in 2001! So much for the
Common Core standards being a "state-led" effort! This is long before what is stated on
the
CCSSI website of this process starting in 2009!

Achieve Common Core Workbook

Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair

"Eventually
the creators of the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI) realized the need to present a facade of state involvement,
and therefore, enlisted
the National
Governors Association (NGA) {a trade association that doesn't include all governors}, and the Council of Chief
State School Officers (CCSSO), another DC-based trade
association. Neither of these groups have grant authority from any
particular state or states to write the standards. The bulk of the
creative work was done by Achieve, Inc., a DC-based nonprofit that
includes many progressive education reformers who have been advocating
national standards and curriculum for decades. Massive funding for all
this came from private interests such as The Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation which has donated $2.5 billion in grants to implement
the Common Core Standards since its implementation in 2007, and these
numbers are still climbing.
(See Common
Core: Myths vs. Facts as well for further information).

Publishing Companies-Pearson,Scholastic
News,
MacGraw
Hill,Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt,(AZ textbooks used in Public Schools are primarily from the
publisher Harcourt)
etc., will benefit from Common Core because they will provide the
textbooks, for training teachers and teaching students, and
curriculum changes that will need to be made to implement Common
Core. Pearson,
the largest on-line book company in the world, announced in their 2012 Earnings Reportthat "The
Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC)...awarded Pearson and Educational Testing
Service (ETS) the contract to develop test items that will be part of the
new English and Mathematics assessments to be administered from the
2014-2015 school year. We continued to produce strong growth in secure
online testing, an important market for the future. We increased online
testing volumes by more than 10%, delivering 6.5 million state
accountability tests, 4.5 million constructed response items and 21
million spoken tests. We now assess oral proficiency in English, Spanish,
French, Dutch, Arabic and Chinese. We also launched the Online Assessment
Readiness Tool for the PARCC and the Smarter Balance Assessment
Consortium (SBAC) Common Core consortia to help 45 states prepare for the
transition to online assessments."Can you say more $$$ for Pearson???

GET INVOLVED

If you would like to Become a member of the "Arizonans Against Common
Core" team and help us educate Arizona residents about Common Core, please
e-mail Our website coordinator at AZSchoolChoice at cox.net